10 August 2020 — Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio for Week of August 10, 2020

with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
“Black August” Honors Captives of Armed Struggle / Black Brazilians Hit Hard by Covid-19 / Insurance Industry Vital to US Slavery / Midwives Could Help Stem Maternal and Infant Death Toll

“Black August” Honors Captives of Armed Struggle

with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
“Black August started in San Quentin to highlight the armed struggle,” said Jihad Abdulmumit, chairperson of the Jericho Movement, which advocates for political prisoners. “These struggle in the past are reflective of the conditions that protesters in the streets are still fighting,” said Abdulmumit, a former Black Panther who spent 23 years as a political prisoner.

Black Brazilians Hit Hard by Covid-19

with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Brazil and the US lead the world in coronavirus fatalities, with Blacks in both countries dying disproportionately, said Jaime Amparo Alves, an author and social anthropologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara who is raising funds through UneAfro Brazil to aid poverty favela-dwellers. “How can we have social distancing in a space that’s overcrowded and lacks everything?” said Amparo Alves, author of “The Anti-Black City: Police Terror and Black Urban Life in Brazil.”

Insurance Industry Vital to US Slavery

with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Insuring one’s slave “is actually a better financial decision than insuring other kinds of property,” said Dr Michael Ralph, director of Africana Studies at New York University, Human beings “are the only kind of property that accrues value over time based on skills learned in life,” said Ralph, who wrote an article on the insurance industry’s role in US slavery.

Midwives Could Help Stem Maternal and Infant Death Toll
with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Dr Sasha Turner, professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, says more extensive use of midwives would reduce skyrocketing increases in maternal birth difficulties, worldwide. The problem is hostility to midwifery from professional doctors, nurses and medical corporations, said Turner, whose book is titled “Contested Bodies: Pregnancy, Childbearing, and Slavery in Jamaica.”